~ Random musings on all things cultural/Cultural

Category Archives: Food and Drink

If you haven’t heard of Blue Apron, it is one of a number of subscription meal services that have popped up in recent years. In fact, if you are wondering why so many “food” photos seem to be finding their way into your Facebook feed, Blue Apron may be the culprit. I’m not sure why Blue Apron makes people suddenly want to document their cooking, but it’s probably because it vastly improves the way your dinner plate looks. (Well, mine anyway, as I seldom make any effort at actually “plating” anything I cook).

Seared Salmon & Preserved Lemon with Red Quinoa & Pea Shoot Salad

In any case, this tendency dovetails nicely with the fact that Blue Apron is also remarkably generous about giving out free meals, so, if you see someone’s Blue Apron pictures and want to try it yourself, ask them if they have any invitations to give out.* I myself took advantage of one such invitation and have been experimenting with Blue Apron for almost two months. While I have stopped getting regular deliveries (for reasons given below), I will likely keep my account for occasional dips back into the service.

How Does Blue Apron Work?

If you are signed up for the two-person plan, you get one refrigerated box delivered every week with all the ingredients necessary (except salt, pepper, and oil) for three meals. Each meal has its own full-page recipe card with easy-to-follow instructions and photos. There are also tips and videos online. Each meal takes about 30–40 minutes to prepare and cook. There is a decent amount of chopping but almost no measuring (since things like mustard or flour are portioned out for you already).

You can review the menu in advance and decide whether to opt in or out of each week’s delivery. Sometimes you can mix and match among the meat, fish, and vegetarian options but I usually found that when I tried to substitute one of my meat/fish dishes I could only replace it with the most boring vegetarian dish available, usually one that was pasta-based. This is one of the biggest issues I have with Blue Apron since very seldom do ingredients seem to overlap between my recipes so I have no idea why all combinations aren’t available each week. I really wanted to try some of the more adventurous vegetarian dishes but that basically meant getting only vegetarian dishes for that week. Sorry, Blue Apron, but I don’t need you to cook pasta.

I would have loved to have tried making Palak Paneer, one of my favorite Indian dishes, but I couldn’t mix and match that week.

What Are the Pros?

1) New Techniques and Ingredients

By far, the best thing about Blue Apron was reminding myself of techniques long forgotten and learning a few new basics that make all the difference. Favorite tips include soaking shallots and onions in vinegar to reduce bite, cooking raw kernels of corn in a sauté pan instead of boiling corn on the cob, and making a sort-of lemon salsa for fish (called rather inaccurately “preserved lemon”) by dicing a whole lemon, skin and all, and soaking it in a sugar/salt combo. Also, how just the simple act of breading can work wonders with chicken—although I think that Blue Apron recipes rely a bit too heavily on this technique. I also learned the value of ponzu sauce and miso paste, which I’m sure I’ve never bought in my life.

2) Restaurant-Quality Meals

While I definitely didn’t love everything, there were more good meals than bad and the selections made for a nice variety. (I believe that Blue Apron claims that recipes never repeat in a year but I obviously haven’t put that to the test.) Favorite dishes include Stir-Fried Ginger-Basil Chicken with Coconut Rice, Seared Salmon with Preserved Lemon, Sirloin Steak with Mashed Purple Potatoes, Miso-Roasted Chicken with Spring Peas, and the Creamy Potatoes. For the most part, these are dishes that I would never have bothered to make at home before and the recipe cards allowed me to prepare them with confidence. I will probably be keeping about half the recipes to make again on my own (a far better ratio than I achieve with most cookbooks). As stated above, there were vegetarian dishes I would have loved to have tried but Blue Apron never seemed to allow for the weekly combination I would have liked.

3) Value

In addition to the time saved by not having to shop for specific ingredients, which is huge, the real value lies in the aforementioned quality. While Blue Apron meant I was spending more than usual on food cooked at home, the quality of the ingredients and the meals meant I had less of a desire to order take-out food, which I guess means that Blue Apron pays for itself in a way. Also, for me, there was value in being reminded about portion size and what two servings of meat really looks like. I have a feeling that when shopping going forward, I will tend not to overbuy as much as I used to. So, while I do think Blue Apron is pricey, I found it to be worth the cost under certain circumstances.

While I’m glad I decided to subscribe to Blue Apron, it was not as ideal for a single person living in the city as I had hoped. Here’s why.

1) Delivery

The biggest argument against Blue Apron for me (and this would likely not be the case for most people) is that I have to be home for delivery. While boxes are packaged to be able to be left on your doorstep all day and still remain cold, in my case, if I am not able to let the delivery person into my apartment building, the box will literally be left on my doorstep. Outside my building. On the sidewalk. On a busy street in downtown San Francisco. So, yeah, that doesn’t work for me. Luckily, I work as a freelancer so I can usually be around, but packages can come at any time from late morning to early evening so I’m essentially stuck at home until they arrive. I’ve had a few other issues with deliveries but I won’t list them here as Blue Apron dealt with them in the best possible manner.

2) Restaurant-Quality Meals

Wait, what? Wasn’t this a “pro”? Yes, but every rose has its thorns. What I hoped would be the solution to the “cooking for one” problem really wasn’t. The downside to restaurant-style meals is that they usually don’t make good leftovers. So, if you are not a couple, you basically get one good meal, and then one that is fair-to-middling at best. I would say maybe a third of the meals held their own after a day. My slow cooker may provide the same meal for days, but at least it is usually just as good (if not better) each time. Since they do provide a “family-meal” subscription, I would love to see them provide one for singles as well. Most of these recipes and the ingredient packaging could easily be adapted for one and I would seriously consider paying the same amount of money for 4 single meals a week versus 3 two-person meals.

3) Packaging and the Environment

I feel very guilty about all the packaging. Everything is recyclable in theory, but in practice, not so much. First, all plastic needs to be rinsed. Aside from being annoying, California is currently undergoing a severe drought so I try to use as little water as possible. (Note: This is also the reason I don’t use the ridiculous numbers of prep bowls they suggest.) But it’s not just a washing issue—I’m well aware that just producing that packaging uses water and energy. If you normally buy your food at the grocery store, this might not be a big deal, but I buy almost all fruits and vegetables at the farmers market so I’m not used to much in the way of plastic and packaging for produce. Finally, the gel cold packs aren’t really recyclable at all. Unless you happen to know an organization that needs ice packs and have a way of hauling them there, those are going in the trash.

4) Catfish

As god is my witness, I will never eat catfish again. I’m not a big fish eater, but out of twenty meals, two were catfish. Just, no. And the only shrimp dish was a New England-Style Shrimp Roll which wasn’t even good the first night. More cod, or other fish or seafood options I might actually buy in a store, would have been nice.

If I could get Szechuan Eggplant and Steak & Potatoes the same week, I would be much more likely to use Blue Apron.

In sum, I think that I would recommend this service for many people, even if it didn’t work for me in the long term. With a few tweaks, they could make the service far more appealing for me, but currently it’s not ideal, despite the value I think it provides.

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I was planning to write my traditional year-end posts on books and my annual book challenge, as well as other posts on film, travel, and television; however, after being promoted to lead editor on what has turned out to be a holy mess of a project needing lots of TLC, December slipped quickly away and was not the time for reflection and review that I had hoped for back when I started the holiday season with my First Lines book challenge. I did manage round-ups of my San Francisco Opera and So You Think You Can Dance viewing, but, for the rest, I humbly present The Year in Stuff.

The Year in Travel

It has been an odd travel year. In my first full year as a freelancer, a move I made in part to be able to travel more, I barely left home. (Note: This is probably unsurprising to anyone who has actually gone into business for themselves.) Not only did I feel I needed to be around to pick up work when I could, but I also went back to a stricter budget. So, I limited my few getaways to using miles to visit friends in Seattle and Los Angeles. Of course, I did manage to squeeze in one National Park on my Seattle trip: Mount Rainier.

However, everything changed when one of my elderly aunts died in the summer and I realized I had been promising for almost a year to visit my extended family in France and still hadn’t pulled the trigger and bought tickets. This dovetailed nicely with a trip La Javanaise was planning to the UK and Ireland and she convinced me to take the plunge and join her for a few days in Scotland, which has long been a dream destination for me. So, in addition to once again attending the opera and ballet in Paris, I was able to make a first-time visit to my cousin’s place in Armagnac, as well as see Edinburgh, Glencoe, Oban, and Loch Lomond in the Trossachs National Park. I will write up these trips on my travel blog in January. (New Year’s Resolution #1)

Best Dining View of 2013: The Lodge on Loch Lomond in Luss, UK

Now that my freelancing business is picking up, I hope to be able to enjoy more trips like this in 2014 and beyond.

Favorite epitaph tweet: “If I believed in cemeteries, I think I would want my tombstone to read: Gone too soon. But at least she finally finished WOLF HALL.” (Don’t worry this was my only epitaph tweet during the year.)

Favorite random tweet: “Sometimes I feel sorry for the alouette and then other times I think it got what was coming to it.”

Favorite haiku tweet: “Too late, I noticed, it was a sparkly bath bomb; Damn you to hell, Lush.”

Best Opening Credits Song (runner-up): “Fight the Power” from The Heat

Worst Use of San Francisco:Blue Jasmine

Best Awards Show Hosts: Tina Fey and Amy Poehler at the Golden Globes

Favorite British Invasion:The Bletchley Circle

Favorite Invader from the Great White North: Orphan Black

Favorite Hulu Discovery:Engrenages (Spiral). A French police drama somewhere between The Wire and Law and Order.

Special Achievement in “Unpleasant Surprise”: Seeing a college friend (now a congressman) in a Daily Show segment. That is never good.

Most Coveted TV Library:Downton Abbey

The Year in Books

Trying to be extra ambitious this year, and having easily made my goal of sixty books in previous years, I increased my Goodreads reading goal to seventy-two books. Naturally, this then meant I didn’t even read sixty. What’s worse is that I was absolutely abysmal at writing up reviews and am still woefully behind there. (New Year’s Resolution #2)

However, I did do fairly well with my TBR challenge, finishing sixteen of the thirty books I set aside. You can see the final list in the order I read them on my book challenge page. I’ve included The Barbary Coast, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, and The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid on there because I have already begun all three and will finish them in January. (New Year’s Resolution #3)

The TBR Challenge Book I Wish I Had Managed to Read Instead:The Octopus: A Story of California by Frank Norris

Of the eleven books I didn’t read, I’ve already given away three. I will temporarily keep the others until April Fools Day and the end of the Triple Dog Dare, when they will all go on to a home with someone who can love them better than me. (New Year’s Resolution #4)

Best Discovery: Amélie Nothomb. While I only read one book by her, Stupeur et tremblements (Fear and Trembling), I look forward to reading many more. She has a delightful sense of humor and I loved her self-deprecating style.

Biggest Surprise:The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling). I had no interest in The Casual Vacancy but, when the pseudonym news on this one broke, I was intrigued. While it reads a bit slow for a typical crime book, the character development was strong and I look forward to more in the series. Since much of the tale revolves around the paparazzi, it was interesting to be reading this in the middle of the “royal baby watch” madness.

Biggest Surprise (runner-up):Les Heures souterraines (Underground Time) by Delphine de Vigan. This book, about two forty-somethings almost meeting as they go about their daily lives in Paris, was a runner-up for the Prix Goncourt. So I wasn’t surprised it was good, but I was surprised by how easy it was to read, while still being remarkably poetic.

Best Classic (tie):Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson and The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I decided to read Stevenson because I went to Scotland and Kidnapped was the perfect choice as much of it takes place in the Highlands. The Hound of the Baskervilles was technically a re-read but I had forgotten just how good a tale it is. Definitely the best of the stand-alone Holmes/Watson novels.

Biggest Accomplishment:Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. I think this was my third attempt at this book. Not because I didn’t like it, but it reads slow and always seemed to come due at the library before I was finished. Plus, it is quite long…

Longest Book:Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. At 532 pages, Wolf Hall was the clear “winner” here, with The Shadow of the Wind and May We Be Forgiven the closest competitors at 487 and 480 pages respectively. While I felt like I read far more short books this year, I actually read a dozen books that were over 400 pages and over 17,000 pages total during the year.

Shortest Book:Jane Austen by Sylvia Townsend Warner. At 36 pages, this was more of an essay on the author, but it was in book form.

Biggest Disappointment: The Stranger by Camilla Läckberg. This fourth installment of the Fjällbacka series felt like a formula to me and I was able to guess multiple plot strands far in advance, something I’m normally very bad at. It was still was an entertaining read, but Läckberg’s repetition of the underlying premise (abused child seeks revenge) makes me very dubious about what is in store for the next volume, The Hidden Child.

Best Lesson Learned:The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis. For a long time, one of the guiding mantras of my reading was “no Oprah books” and I’m sorry to report that Oprah 2.0 seems to suffer from the same tendency to pick horrible books (you know the ones, “inspiring” books where one character, usually a woman, suffers horribly, usually by losing a child, only to somehow find some kind of miserable redemption in the end). I read the first section of this one and just knew it would be one of those books. I returned it to the library mostly unread.

Most Disturbing:In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick. The true story that Moby-Dick was based on. Three words: Whales. Shipwreck. Cannibalism.

Favorite Series: The Thomas Cromwell trilogy by Hilary Mantel. While I’m in the minority in that I preferred Wolf Hall to Bring Up the Bodies, both were fabulous reads and I can’t wait until the final volume comes out in 2015.

Most Recurring Theme: Britishness. In a year that I finally made it to Scotland, it is perhaps fitting that the British Isles so dominated my reading, with over half of the books I read being from English or Scottish authors. These included classics from Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Robert Louis Stevenson as well as books from relatively new favorite authors S.J. Bolton, Jane Harris, and Ian McEwan. I also took on the first two books in Hilary Mantel’s acclaimed Cromwell trilogy, as well as a popular first novel by Robert Galbraith, aka J.K. Rowling. Non-fiction included Caitlin Moran’s How to Be a Woman and Moranthology and the close-to-my-heart memoir Stet: An Editor’s Life by Diane Athill.

Best in Family Drama:May We Be Forgiven by A.M. Homes. I can’t really say why I liked this novel so much, but, given that it prevented Hilary Mantel from completing the British literary prize hat trick of Booker-Costa-Orange, I shouldn’t be surprised. The story looks at the themes of family, guilt, and redemption in the New York suburbs. It is darkly funny and I recommend it as an entertaining, literary read. It’s long, but moves quickly—one of my favorite books of the year. Between this and last year’s winner (The Song of Achilles), I highly recommend the Women’s Prize for Fiction as a source for good book recommendations.

Classics (Prior to 1945): 13 (24%)Recent Books (2009-2013): 21 (38%)Fiction vs. Nonfiction: 42 (76%) vs. 13 (24%) This is very close to last year’s split.Female authors vs. Male authors: 25 (56%) vs. 20 (44%) This is exactly the same as last year’s split.New World (Americas) vs. Old World (Europe): 17 (31%) vs. 38 (69%) Last year this skewed to the US and Canada but this year the Brits and the French seemed to take over. Clearly I need more diversity in my reading. There certainly needs to be at least some Africa and Asia in the mix.Books in translation: 3 (5%) This is fewer than last year, but I also read 4 books in French as well.

What was your favorite book, movie, or performance of the year? Let me know in the comment box below what cultural event or product gave you the most joy in 2013.

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While I wait for a Netflix glitch to be resolved so that I can complete the Lubitsch screenings for my first screwball post, I thought I would share one of the cocktail recipes I created for the Oscars. Although I didn’t particularly enjoy it on the night, once I tinkered with the ingredients and proportions, I decided it was a keeper.

I came up with The Silk Rose to honor Argo, Life of Pi, and Zero Dark Thirty, which all take place in countries along the Silk Road, the network of trade routes across Asia. The drink itself is inspired by the Rose Water Fizz in Victoria Moore’s How to Drink, but with slightly different proportions and homemade grenadine instead of sugar to have another “Silk Road” ingredient in there. Plus the pomegranate gives it a lovely pink color to go with its name.

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After last week’s post on my new reality competition discovery, The Taste, I was contacted by someone affiliated with Alamos Wines who graciously provided me with Gregg’s winning recipe to share with all of you (see below). I’m not sure I’ll be able to make it in an hour as Gregg did, nor when I might have smoked eel and bonito flakes on hand to do so, but it certainly looks like it is worth the effort. If you make it, I want a full report!

This week, Gregg again won the team challenge and everyone seems to be gunning for him; however, he showed his first sign of weakness by ending up on the bottom of the solo challenge. Of course, by winning the team challenge, he had immunity and was automatically safe from elimination. We will have to wait until next week to see if his disappointing result shakes Ludo’s confidence in him.

Tensions definitely seemed higher in every kitchen this week, and the deceptively simple theme of sandwiches proved to be the undoing of more than one top contender. However, at the end of the day, the right people seem to have been sent packing. The team I suspected to be the weakest coming out of the auditions is indeed turning out to be much weaker than the other three, but we are slowly approaching the point where I don’t see who could possibly be sent home next.

Method:
Char the whole eggplants over a flame until black and soft. Scoop out the insides from the skin and pulse in a blender with sesame oil; season with salt.

To prepare jus, sauté shallots and garlic in canola oil in a large saucepan until soft and aromatic. Add sake and reduce by half. Add chicken stock, soy sauce and mushrooms and cook for 20 minutes. Reduce heat and add eel; simmer for 10 minutes more. Pour mixture through a fine strainer to remove solids. Place miso and black garlic in a blender. Slowly add the mushroom broth, blending until smooth.

To prepare short ribs, season meat with five spice powder and smoked salt. Heat oil in a medium skillet over high heat. Sear meat on all sides; reduce heat and cook until medium rare. Set aside for 5 minutes then thinly slice.

To plate, arrange sliced short ribs over eggplant puree then drizzle jus around short ribs. Garnish with bonito flakes, scallions and cilantro. Serves 4-6.

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About Me

Half American, half French, and all-around opinionated.

“Maybe it’s the French in my blood. You know, sometimes I feel as if I’m sparkling all over and I want to go out and do something absolutely crazy and marvelous and then the American part of me speaks up and spoils everything.”--Bette Davis in The Petrified Forest